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Re: Patents can be for good, not only evil

2007-10-30 09:04:30
Hi Eric, 

I generally agree, that patents are not *necessarily* evil ... just that 
they can be, so need to err on the side of caution. 

Phil Zimmerman has applied for patents in ZRTP, specifically to ensure
that all implementations fully conform with the specification.  Cost to
license for a conformant specification?  $0.  Cost to not really provide
privacy but claim to be implementing ZRTP?  Costly!

Cannot resist:   I believe it was Dean Willis that described this approach 
as "brilliantly evil" a couple of IETF meets ago...  >;->

-- Peter







"Eric Burger" <eburger(_at_)bea(_dot_)com>
29.10.07 17:16
 
        To:     "Keith Moore" <moore(_at_)cs(_dot_)utk(_dot_)edu>, 
<lrosen(_at_)rosenlaw(_dot_)com>
        cc:     ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
        Subject:        Patents can be for good, not only evil


I would offer that patents are NOT categorically evil.

Phil Zimmerman has applied for patents in ZRTP, specifically to ensure
that all implementations fully conform with the specification.  Cost to
license for a conformant specification?  $0.  Cost to not really provide
privacy but claim to be implementing ZRTP?  Costly!

I specifically applied for patents underlying the technology behind RFC
4722/RFC 5022 and RFC 4730 specifically to prevent third parties, who
are not part of the IETF process, from extracting royalties from someone
who implements MSCML or KPML.  Cost to license?  $0.  Cost to sue
someone who infringes said third-party's IPR?  That depends, but at
least we raised the cost of shutting down an IETF standard.

Remember, just because *you* do not have IPR in an IETF standard does
not mean someone *else* has IPR in the standard.  If that someone else
does not participate in the IETF or, for that matter, happen to not
participate in the work group or, in reality, are not editors of a
document, they can fully apply their IPR against the standard once it
issues.

I like to have a little inoculation against that situation in the stuff
I submit.

-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Moore [mailto:moore(_at_)cs(_dot_)utk(_dot_)edu] 
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 4:04 PM
To: lrosen(_at_)rosenlaw(_dot_)com
Cc: ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
Subject: Re: When is using patented technology appropriate?

Lawrence Rosen wrote:
Keith Moore wrote:

For several reasons, it is difficult to imagine an IETF-wide 
procedure that allows the existence of a patent to trump other 
considerations of protocol feasibility and deployability:


Who suggested otherwise? It is not the existence of the patent that 
matters, but its unavailability under license terms that allow 
implementation in
*any* software.

_and_ its validity, _and_ its applicability, both of which can be
subjective and difficult to determine conclusively without long delays
and excessive expense.   so we have to make judgments.  and by "we" I
mean individuals participating in IETF, not IETF itself.
The more feasible and deployable the protocol, the more important will

be FOSS implementations.

only relative to other protocols in the same space.

granted that patents are the bane of any open standards-making
organization, because patents do exactly the opposite of what open
standards do.  at the same time, we can't let FUD about patents become a
denial of service attack to IETF efforts.

Keith


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